


in pinkness and in health

by Mangerine



Category: World Trigger
Genre: M/M, Mystery, Scientist!Yuma, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangerine/pseuds/Mangerine
Summary: Lose your voice, and lose your life; A scientist arrives at Mikado city with his strange invention, where tangerines and love bloom alike. But something deadly is looming in the orchards - something hungry, something silent, something pink - and it's almost harvest season.
Relationships: Kuga Yuuma/Mikumo Osamu
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	in pinkness and in health

It was a dark and stormy night.

Or, it was about to be.

Yuma hurried through the forest, hopping past thick pools of mud and stepping on soft mounds of fallen leaves. The next city would draw up soon, and he’d find a nice room for the night and the next few nights. His old suitcases rattle in warning with each step he took, just loudly enough for him to slow down.

Mikado city was promising enough — small, but bubbling over with trade. Fruit sellers the next town over swore they’d never think of importing their tangerines from anywhere else. In the branches, Yuma spotted oily, pea-like buds still hanging persistently, the bratty wind shrieking through them, throttling them like rattles. Maybe he’d be here long enough to enjoy the harvest.

Nothing but good tidings ahead, he thought, phlegmatic.

_Hastiness will be the death of a scientist_ , his dead father warns. Black letters jump in and out of view from under his collar as he signs to his son quickly, _you’ll have to stop jumping to conclusions – and jumping around my lab, you sugar-addled little-_

“It is going to rain soon,” Replica notified,

Yuma nodded, the clearing was up ahead. From there, he would take a left turn at the old well and arrive at Mikado City gates before the sun set.

That’s when he heard the screaming.

His first thought: a beast yowling into the wind. It rang across the coppery trunks of the forest, a long, drawn-out thing, stretching and stretching until it snuffed out. Yuma stopped where he stood, until the echoes stopped flitting among the branches.

He’d barely taken two cautious steps when it came again, the same as it was before – long and thick with emotion; a loaded paint brush, pulled across a canvas until it dragged itself dry.

It didn’t seem to come from the clearing. It didn’t even seem to come from a human. Yuma had never heard anyone scream like that.

In fact, Yuma had never heard anyone scream at all.

Any sensible person would have doubled up and ran towards the welcome gates of the nearby city. But Yuma wasn’t a sensible person. He was a scientist’s son, and a scientist in his own right.

And a scientist was nothing if not inquisitive.

“The time now is: 6 Koo and 30 Dian” Replica notified preemptively, already sure Yuma was going to investigate the strange sound. “The sun will be setting soon,” Replica sighed, as Yuma stepped over a small, budding bush.

Yuma waved at him. _Just five minutes_ , it meant, but Replica knew Yuma would be shaking rainwater out of his cogs and gears that night.

Yuma watched from behind a suitably large tree as a boy his age hunched over a tree trunk, sobbing in gasping huffs. A drooping, wilted plant; with his moss-green sweater and powdery brown jeans.

_No one particularly rich_ , Yuma thought, then supposed again that his hypothesis was wrong.

When the boy looked up, his silver glasses blinked in the darkening woods.

That wasn’t a metaphor either - the way the soft metal had been bent and straightened many times where it shone across the boy’s temples was a giveaway. It was nearly pure, or a compound of such.

A spike of envy shot through him. How many times had he bargained for a small wire of silver for his inventions? He’d gone a near month on watery vegetable stock and a measly baguette to save for a shard of silver no thicker than the whites of his fingernail, and here was a crybaby with a whole spectacle frame made of it. It wasn’t even a sensible material for an everyday object,

Huffing and grousing, Yuma bent to grab for his suitcase straps. His curiosity was sated enough. Quite frankly, he wasn’t about to listen to why the rich brat was sitting in the middle of the forest screaming by himself and crying himself hoarse. Maybe high tea and crumpets went out of style among the aristocrats, and flinging yourself in the woods and wailing was the new trend —

Who cared?

The metal fixing of his suitcase handle popped then, and his suitcase swung down like a pendulum, slamming into his foot with a loud THACK. He immediately turned to see if the boy behind him had noticed.

Now,

he shouldn’t have turned. If he hadn’t this might have been a different story. Or perhaps it’d be the same one, but he wouldn’t have been the same person. That’s the funny way things work, always same, same, but different. Same story, different character. Same roles, different endings. Not that you could comprehend how different, since you only got one shot at life, anyhow - No triplicating experiments. There was no telling if it’d turn out the same way if they’d changed a few variables. A few unspoken words here, a smidge undone actions there, maybe he’d have been a different Yuma. Maybe he’d have been a Yuma with silver spectacles, drinking thick chowder made of heartier ingredients than vegetable peelings, with generous servings of toasted garlic bread that wasn’t stale. But he wasn’t that Yuma, and like I said before, he really

should

not 

have, but —

Yuma turned, to see a pair of green eyes staring at him from behind silver frames.

He swore – for a moment, acres of forests in eyes - a microcosm, a terrarium, a cold green dot on a microscope slide. If you’d held up a perfectly flat lens to the trees, somehow – yes, no different from that. He remembers his first time he used a microscope, winking down the eyepiece, twisting the knobs slowly, slowly, watching as a plant cell in hypotonic solution came into focus. All chlorophyll green, turgid and bloated, but alive, aware, staring back at him. For that split moment, really, he swore-

_Hello_ , Yuma signed, awkward.

“Hello,” The boy croaked back, out loud,

And now the boy was talking, when anyone sensible would have been signing and saving their words. Oh misfortune, Yuma felt the reluctance to converse well up in him again. They stared at each other, unsure how quite to continue a conversation neither wanted a part of.

Replica seemed to sense this, and, annoyed at being delayed (and quite possibly drenched) for nothing, popped out from behind Yuma.

“Are you well?” Replica asked.

Osamu stared, gaping.

“He’s my chaperone,” Yuma signs, because he knew an opening when he saw one, “my father built him,” he continued, when Replica refused to introduce himself, clearly grumpy.

“Nice to meet you,” Osamu said, blinking furiously and forgoing signing yet again.

Yuma studied him now, a bookish teen with (REDACTED) eyes. His middle finger on his left hand was dented at its top joint – a student, perhaps, or a clerk. Either way, a writer, one that gripped his pen too hard. Clean unscuffed shoes, not otherwise muddy, not one to be found in the woods. All in all, an oddity.

And scientists were often drawn to oddities.

“Nice to meet you,” Replica finally replied, still pissy, “Are you well?” he asked again.

“I’m fine,” The boy says back, clearly not fine. His hands were trembling and his face a right mess of tears, snot and crumbling courage.

“That’s a lie,” Yuma sighed, settling down by the boy, “I’ve got a lie detector in my eye, you know,” he signed.

He spreads his palm over his chest in proper greeting.

“Y-U-M-A” he signs, before placing his palm over his chest again, bowing.

“O-S-A-M-U” the boy replies, bowing in return.

“A lie detector?” Osamu whispered, “is that true?”

“False,” Replica, the one with a real lie detector installed in him corrected (though those things were notoriously useless, and Yuma was considering taking the thing out altogether). He plopped down on Yuma’s lap, burrowing into his rough jacket. No point in both of them getting wet.

“I needed a conversation opener,” Yuma admitted, shrugging as he signed, “But it was pretty obvious,” The damp grass seeped dampness on the back of his thighs, even through his thick trousers.

Osamu stared at the strange boy for a moment, before he opened his mouth, and closed it again.

“You talk,” Yuma signed, “Why?”

Nobody talked. Or rather, nobody with nothing really important to say did. You only had a limited amount of words in your life, and wasting it seemed silly. You didn’t even get a gauge for how many words exactly you had left. No, you just got a imprint on your throat, the first words your soulmate would say to you, and every time you spoke, it faded and faded until it disappeared, and you found yourself unable to speak at all.

Yuma had a few improved blueprints to run by Mother Nature, if he ever got the chance.

Osamu tugged at the ends of his scarf - probably one of the conservative sorts that thought it improper to go around baring your imprint, but Yuma noticed the tall peaks of alphabets peeking from behind. It seemed to be an uncommon one too, not a simple hello, like his own was.

Osamu noticed him staring, and fixed up his scarf.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, fiddling with the warm yarn round his throat, “My voice won’t last until I meet them anyhow,”

Yuma leaned forward, easily muffling Replica in his coat as the little machine grumbled.

“Jumping into conclusions never did anyone good,” Yuma signed. There’s that nagging feeling that he should be crediting his father somehow, but he squashes it down. “How’d you figure that you’ve got no hope of meeting them?”

“My mother,” Osamu starts, “She’s got the Pink”

Yuma shuddered. Yikes.

The Pink was a silent disease – quite literally. After an individual wore out their voice and went permanently silent, the pink settled in between the atrophying muscles of the voicebox like cuckoos in a stolen nest. A well-documented enigma of a mimetic virus, it imitated the dead chromatophores, that formed imprints, From there, metastasis. Your faded imprints would reappear, a bright, chilly pink, before your neck, the cells of your lungs, the plains of your back, the columns of your thighs. The pink consumed in an unholy burning everywhere it touched, and all its victims died, in silence, in agony, and in the pink of unhealth.

“My condolences,” Yuma signs.

“Don’t worry,” Osamu replies, “I got her the Echo pill.”

That certainly got his attention. The Echo pill was harvested from the first sound of humans – the newborn’s cry. Ethical issues aside, the operation was intensely risky, the child could risk losing their voice for the rest of their life, and even contract the Pink themselves, much like himse(the rest of the sentence was scribbled out and could not be transcribed), should they accidentally draw out too much voice from them, and leave them susceptible to the Pink themselves.

But from what they knew, the Echo pill was the one of the only ways to drive the Pink away for good. The moment the infected soul spoke, the pink would be driven away, fading away for good. But its rarity made it incredibly expensive.

“I got a job singing for a Duke and Dame,” Osamu said, voice stilted with emotion, “with Valentines’ Day coming up, they’re eager to - they’d pay anything to please their soulmates”

Osamu looks down, and his glasses catch his tears as he cries and cries.

“I’ll get the money soon, and pay back my loans, but I’ll never be able to meet my -”

Yuma needed an exit out of this conversation.

Like he said, nobody spoke. In some misguided hope to share their limited voices with their soulmates, they never spoke, not even to the person they were supposed to talk to. A babbling child had better hope of meeting their soulmate that every other quiet adult. It was a flawed system, sure but it was flawed for everyone, what’s the big deal?

_A crybaby romantic_ , Yuma thought unhappily _, just my luck_. He tried to fumble for his suitcase behind him, make a half-baked excuse and run for it. And that plan would have worked, like most plans worked, if he just didn’t turn around-

-to look Osamu in his (this part of the report was scratched out repeatedly. There are water stains that have blotched the ink).

“I can help,” he signed instead, because he’s an idiot. Replica seemed to think so too, butting him hard in his belly.

Osamu stared at him.

“I’m a scientist,” Yuma announced, pausing to unlatch the buckles along his luggage. “And this, is my family’s invention.”

He gestured to his machine, an unassuming black box with red strips of light around it. It glowed and beeped lazily,

“When connected to Replica. It-“

_Splash_

Osamu and Yuma looked at the sky, wordlessly. In a second, Yuma lunged to shut his suitcase, and clutch it to his chest. Osamu grabbed a suitcase and his hand, pulling him down a dry, short path, under the thick, dark leaves of the orchard. They left footprints in the mud, but the rain washed it away as they ran.

x

“Track and Record: Imprint-Organizing Node” Yuma shows on a well-worn and thoroughly soggy placard, “T.R.I.O.N is a system that records the molecular makeup of your imprint-“

Yuma flipped over to the next card, half the placard flopping over, soft from the rain.

“and creates a database that finds your corresponding imprint – your soulmate”

Osamu toweled off his hair.

“Sounds crazy.”

Yuma flipped his placard. It fell with a loud squish.

“Yes, it sounds crazy, but we’ve got a success rate of-“

The rest of the placard was smudged and dripping. Yuma sighed and groped behind him for Replica to continue his sales pitch. The grumpy orb only wobbled nearer to Osamu, sulking and dripping water from his hinges.

Osamu patted the small machine dry, Replica’s satisfied beeping muffled under the soft towel.

_Traitor_ , Yuma thought, looking at the dismal state of his placards. He ran a hand through his hair and found that he didn’t quite rinse all of the gooey tangerine shampoo out. He debated taking another shower just as another wave of thunder rolled over the small Mikumo residence, pelting the zinc roof relentlessly.

So he was wrong about the rich part. His father had salvaged the silver from a decorative fixing on a bridge years before when his own frames broke. He passed them down to Osamu when he got short sighted.

He still maintained that it was an impractical material.

Osamu’s room was humid and warm from the shower, and smelled thickly of tangerine soap. Replica had floated over to the small electric heater in the corner, springing his outer shell open to dry out his gears.

“I’ll try to find a room tomorrow,” Yuma signed, tired. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry, we have a spare futon anyway” Osamu signed, before folding up the towel and tucking it under Replica like a nest. The little robot beeped luxuriously.

Yuma looked up from what remained of his cue cards when Osamu rapped on the wooden floors.

“Sorry you had to see me like that,” Osamu signed quickly, before reaching for the placards and lining them up near the heater to dry. He was embarrassed and cagey now, a heavy palm over the teapot tempest that was spilling over just an hour ago.

Yuma found him ridiculous still. In the hour they’d shared together he’d learnt that Osamu and himself were the same age, that the boy was a student on his harvest break (whatever that was), and that no- there was no new trend of rich teens screaming in forests, and why would he ever ask that?

Furthermore, beyond a sentimental fool, he was abundantly trusting, easily pushing Yuma into his home and shower without a thought to his own safety.

Less an enigma, still a puzzle. Yuma was grateful enough to not fully regret what he said next:

“When Replica’s dry,” Yuma signed “we can help you find your soulmate,”

Osamu stared at him for a little, and Yuma had the good graces to attribute the redness of his face to the light from the heater.

“Thank you,” he signed, smiling.

As Yuma slept on his thick futon, he dreamt of green and orange, tree branches weighed heavy with tangerines; he took a step towards the tree, and fell forward, rippling the scene before him, and he is — in a thick chowder of green peas and orange carrots….!

He wakes to the smell of breakfast.

x

Past the orchards that were their pride and joy, Osamu spent the next afternoon showing him the long stretches of markets and the city hall. The rain was a distant memory now, and the humid town promised much for Yuma. The town was abound in curiousities — Why had they a fascination with the tangerines? Why was there a salty tang to the air? (“There’s a port behind the town hall” Osamu explained). The market was filled with sounds of bustle, but not a single word.

“Seems like I don’t have much to do here,” Yuma signed, as Osamu paid for their lunch. “Mostly everyone seems to have their soulmate already,”

Not that he minded, Mikado had an invigoration to it, a spark of life. Whether or not T.R.I.O.N got more data, the town was doing much for his spirits. Even Replica seemed cheerful.

“It’s a small town,” Osamu signed back, a second before the boxed lunch vendor, an old lady, smacked his ankle with her stick, shooing them along.

Alright, topic successfully broached, Yuma thought, watching as Osamu bought them tangerine juice from a young girl by a shady tree. Of all the mysteries, the closest seemed to be the one Osamu’s imprint. It was, plainly, none of his business, but still, one wondered.

Yuma watched from the bench as the little girl ladled juice into the soft shells of tangerines. Osamu handed the small sphere to him, and Yuma inspected the flesh-stripped whiteness inside the hollow of the orange, wondering how they had extracted the juice without so much a dent in the tangerine shell.

“Don’t squeeze the cup,” Osamu signed, just as Yuma pressed a little too hard on the sides of his soft cup, spilling juice over his lap.

“Don’t-” Osamu tried again, as Yuma placed the round cup on the bench to dry himself, for a second forgetting that spheres had a tendency to roll over, which it did, soaking his left thigh with juice.

“I’m a genius at physics,” Yuma signed in a pathetic attempt to salvage his pride. Osamu, to his credit, doesn’t laugh at him, fretting to find his handkerchief. The girl under the tree snickered from a distance; Yuma doesn’t blame her.

As he dried himself, Osamu tried to explain that shell cups were a local custom. It reduced waste and tourists found it endlessly charming, so on and so forth. Osamu had looked so terribly sorry, that Yuma couldn’t bring himself to mind so much. Replica wobbled slightly on his head, probably too comfortable in laughing at him as well.

“Let’s have lunch,” Osamu signed, handing him the wrapped box lunch.

Yuma took one look at the lunch and baulked.

“Lovey dovey couple’s set?” He signed, pointing at the heart patterned box.

“It’s cheaper that way, and the old lady selling it never checks our soulmarks-“ Osamu signed, as Yuma pulled the lid off the box.

Rice, with alarmingly orange fried chicken on it, with a side of fruit (read: orange) salad, and some sautéed vegetables, the only non-orange containing side in the dish.

Yuma hoped he didn’t stick around long enough for harvest season.

With sticky pants for the remainder of the day, Yuma turned down the orange ice cream that Osamu offered to get him, and he almost got run over by a post-delivery truck (which was, yes, unnecessarily orange as well). As they watched the sun set over the horizon of Orchard hill, Yuma made a mental note to ask Mother Nature to consider making the sun any other colour but blasted and twice-damned orange.

“I’m sorry about today,” Osamu signed as they took off their shoes and entered the small house. Yuma watched the way Osamu fixated on smoothing down a flaking piece of paint instead of looking at him.

Yuma knocked twice on the wall and when Osamu finally looked up, signed, “Don’t be down, I had fun,”

Osamu smiled, not entirely convinced, but went to fix dinner for his mother. As Yuma walked up the stairs to their small room, Replica beeped, “Not a lie,”

_No, it isn’t_. Yuma decided, swatting flies from his pants.

x

The hot spring Osamu brings him to the next day is empty. No wonder too — Winter had called her flurries back to her side months ago, and the city was balmy, save for the occasional chill of the wind.

It was, yet, another mystery what business they would have at the humble Amatori Inn, but Osamu was firmly opaque on what business they would have there.

“It’d be a shame if you didn’t try out the tangerine hot springs,” Osamu insisted, pausing to sign at Yuma.

“Not a lie,” Replica buzzed after a moment of scanning Osamu’s gestures.

So they walked into the small establishment, where the middle-aged lady at the reception introduced herself as the 58th generation’s boss, and ushered them to the bath.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Osamu signed from the lockers, jamming his socks into the cubby as Yuma gaped at hundreds of tangerines bobbing in the steaming bath.

“I can see why you wanted us to come here,” Yuma signed back, bending to pick up a tangerine that bobbed near.

“There’s another reason,” Osamu admitted, “but yes,”

The tangerine was warm, and when Yuma tried at squeezing the tough rind, it would not budge. 

“Also,” Osamu signed, kneeling down beside him, “I heard that tangerine baths were good for kids trying to grow talle-“

It was most positively pure superstition, completely debased in science, but Yuma reached over and shoved Osamu into the spring anyway. Osamu then waited underwater just until Yuma peered over in worry, before shooting both arms out and tugging him in face first.

The hot springs are, indeed, hot, and Yuma yelped in shock for a moment, all while Osamu relentlessly splashed at him.

Yuma yields, ducking behind a shield of two particularly large tangerines, laughing all the while. Only then did Osamu yield, shaking water out his hair.

They settled down by the far bank of the springs, Osamu idly braiding the long grasses by the bank, and Yuma trying his damnest to peel a tangerine.

“Don’t bother, they only use overripe tangerines for baths, they’re all bitter,” Osamu signed, just as Yuma released a dented tangerine back into the water.

“Speaking from experience?” Yuma signed back, defeated.

“Maybe,” Osamu evaded cooly, grabbing a tangerine and plopping it on Yuma’s head.

Yuma grabbed a nearby tangerine, careful not to upset the one on his head, and placed it on Osamu’s head.

Ducking low and graciously accepting the fruit, Osamu pawed at the water near him, dragging a nearby tangerine with the water current. He saw that it had an acceptably flat base, and stacked it on the tangerine already on Yuma’s head.

By the time Replica beeped loudly and insistently by the lockers, Osamu had a total of three tangerines on his head and one on each shoulder. Yuma, on the other hand, had four on his head, and two on each shoulder.

“So who won?” Yuma asked as they toweled off.

Osamu shrugged.

At the reception, the old aunt that welcomed them in was replaced by a small girl in a stiff traditional robe. When she noticed them, she closed her book and signed excitedly.

“I didn’t know you were here!” she smiled, before noticing Yuma and bowing.

“Hello,” Osamu smiled, “Yuma, this is Chika,” Osamu introduced, signing each character of her name slowly, “Chika, this is Yuma, he’s a travelling scientist.”

“Hello,” Yuma signed.

“A mad scientist?” Chika started, amazed, before catching herself, and bowing quickly in apology.

“You’re reading too many horror stories again,” Osamu chided.

Yuma noticed the back of the small novel the girl was reading, its bottom border was lined with clipart of test tubes containing bubbling lime green concoctions.

“Anyway,” Osamu clapped, snapping Yuma’s attention to him. “Yuma here has an invention that can find your soulmate, it seems, and he’s looking for help.”

Osamu gestured at Replica, who had decided he wanted in on the fun, and had a small tangerine balanced on him.

“Greetings,” he said, out loud, startling Chika.

Yuma stepped up then, excited, signing on about how TRION worked. He wished he brought his placards, but they were still smudged and damp. No matter, he had his sales pitch recited anyhow.

“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt,” Osamu signed, showing her how Replica’s sensor worked.

“I’ll help,” Chika signed shyly, holding out her hand.

Yuma beamed.

x

“I have a proposition for you,” Osamu signed at five am.

“Does it involve tangerines?” Yuma signed upwards at Osamu from his futon, his fingers weak from sleep.

Osamu considered this, before shaking his head.

“Ok, I’ll hear you out,” Yuma signed, struggling to sit up, before reconsidering and lying back down. “- from down here”

“You don’t have to find a inn, it’s nearly the harvest season anyhow and they’re all full,” Osamu signed, “You can stay here with me, if you check in on my mum every now and then while I’m at rehearsal. It’ll be cheaper for you too.”

Yuma thought of the stern-faced woman resting down the hall. He’d only heard Osamu fussing over her in the kitchen, and barely saw her out of her room. It seemed fair enough.

Curling his index finger to meet his thumb, Yuma signs an ‘OK’, snuggling deeper into his futon. He’d have to research into the calming properties of tangerine baths – he’d never needed more than five hours a sleep a night, but now he found himself sleeping soundly through the night.

Osamu smiled, standing and straightening his choir robe.

“There’s breakfast in the fridge for you and my mum; I’m counting on you!” He signed, slipping out the creaking door.

Through this conversation, Yuma had only one foot out the dreamscape, just enough consciousness to remember Osamu and his mother and the warmth of the tangerine hot spring. He stared at the black of his eyelids until the sun was up. Not quite asleep, not quite awake.

He stared at the worn wooden beams in the ceiling, feeling rested, but not quite awake, finding faces in the woodgrain, watching dust motes float in the orange sunlight. He sees – dreams? – recalls the white robed Osamu signing over him.

Take care of my mother-stay here-nearly the harvest season- stay here with me-I’m counting on you-

Yuma slipped out his futon into the chill of the morning, and went to the kitchen.

x

“I’ll let you stay if you promise not to fuss over me,” Kasumi signed at the breakfast table.

Yuma ran his gaze across the kitchen counter – two fat flasks stood with tea stained rims, and a row of pill bottles. There was a hand-drawn chart, with the dosage of each pill. Multiple notes, all handwritten reminders, scattered by the counter. A damp post-it lay under the lid of her teacup.

Looking back at the lady across the table, Yuma smiled and signed an ‘ok’.

She sighed in relief, and took a long sip of her tea.

x

After they agreed that Yuma would check on her no more than twice a day, Yuma set off with Replica and his rewritten placards. The town was awake now, zinging like bees in the orchard. Most seemed too busy to stop and listen to his pitch. Even the children that ran by were discussing how their relatives were coming over for the harvest.

“Where shall we start?” Replica asked, and Yuma felt a fresh wave of excitement rush over him. This was just like another town. One obsessed with their produce, maybe, but he could make it work.

“I don’t know,” Yuma signed, smiling.

“Let’s find out then,” Replica replied, floating out into the crowd.

Yuma thinks he’d never tire of hearing that.

x

“I don’t mind, I suppose,” The young heiress to Kitora Textile Manufacturers signed, a folded fan hanging on her wrist and snapping with every small movement. Her uniform is a fresh red, an equally loud but happy exception to the flood of orange in the town. As she held out her hand to Replica, she glanced, sidelong, at a sweaty worker with two long rolls of cloth on each shoulder. His shaggy hair is tied back, and he bared his arms and strong legs. His neck - and imprint - is covered with a strip of gauze.

“You know what? It’s lunch soon, you may talk to our workers here. Good luck,” she signed, and snapped her fan open, covering her red face.

x

The office lady hesitated, before turning so the busy streets wouldn’t see her signing.

“I’ll help,” she signed quickly, “I’ll get the entire Operator department on board even, all six hundred of us,”

Yuma nearly dropped his placards.

“- if you get the General Manager on board,” she finished, sticking a hand out for Yuma to shake.

As Yuma bade goodbye to the Head Operator of the Land Development Council (One Sawamura Kyoko, per the business card), he supposed that the women in Mikado took their tangerines and their soulmates very seriously indeed.

(Not that a data point of two was enough to form a reliable conclusion, What was he, a rookie?)

x

He’d missed lunch, but the day’s successes more than made up for it. He had over a hundred entries from Kitora Textiles alone, and a few children even stopped and offered to help – mostly because Replica reminded them of ‘an all-black bee’ – and astoundingly, he found a match between the toddling elementary schoolers. There were healthy jokes about cooties and light-hearted teasing of marriage plans in the small playground, but as the two children bashfully guessed each other’s hidden soul marks, there was nothing but loud clapping.

“We best leave before their parents arrive,” Replica droned, sticky small handprints all over his chrome shell. “I don’t want to explain why their child’s soulword was ‘snotface’”.

Yuma ran a finger over the thin raised skin of his surgical scars, one flanking each side of his imprint, and nodded, leaving the happy scene behind.

x

** Blueprints for Mother Nature **

**#1. Give everyone (this word was underlined multiple times by the author) enough voice to last through childhood at least.**

x

The small patch of land outside the Mikumo residence made for a lackluster garden, and spilled long weeds across the walkway, braiding the path to the door in green and grey.

Yuma took off his shoes by the walkway, and found Kasumi bundled in many woolen blankets, on the worn-out sofa. One thermos was in the sink, on its side, and two more checkmarks were present on the table, next to the painkillers and the antibiotics. She seemed to be in no pain, breathing slow and deep in the cool rickety shed she called a home.

By the coffee table lay a huge basket heaped with yarn and knitting needles, dusty from disuse. Familiar sea green and coffee brown yarn balls sleep with their owner. By them, small test squares of yarn patches, the stitches uneven and crooked. Yuma watched the slumbering form of Kasumi - who betrayed no discomfort save for the slight trembling in her fingertips, still pinkish.

Recovery for the Pink could take anywhere up to two decades.

Yuma himself took five years.

He left Replica to roost on the pile of blankets by Kasumi, his electric warmth ebbing away the pain and padded out the house. The shears were in a box by the storeroom, stained with sticky sap but unrusted. Without gloves, he went into the garden, grabbed the long weeds in a hand, and sliced Mother Nature short.

“My mum used to grow herbs out there,” Osamu signs, hanging his choir uniform by the door. “But the pain…you know. Either way, thank you, I’ve been meaning to trim the grass forever, but I just never found the time.”

The long choir suit is white, and hovers a foot over the door like a specter.

“To be honest, I never had the strength to pull the weeds out anyway, I don’t know how my mum did it, she keeps saying - “

Osamu stopped signing when Yuma reached over to press at his skinny biceps, hotness flushing to his ears when Yuma shook his head disapprovingly.

“Your hands are like sandpaper!” Osamu signed in retaliation, hoping to distract from his scrawny build. “Didn’t you use gloves?”

Yuma looked at his palms. They didn’t look much different from usual. But he could see why Osamu pointed them out — his own hands were bony, the skin pulled taut over his palm smoothly, no callouses or chipped nails.

“How was rehearsal?” Yuma asked, and Osamu paused, staring at the ghostly uniform by the door.

“Fine,” He signed back after a while, and, not wanting to come across as curt, continues, “Two more people dropped out today, they lost their voices early. The duke freaked out and made us all drink more tangerine juice, you know, since it’s supposed to make our voices last longer and all-“

“It does?” Yuma signed quickly. The tangerines seemed more and more mysterious with each passing day.

“Most people believe in it,” Osamu shrugged, amused at how Yuma wrote it down in his notebook quickly.

“Drink more of it,” Yuma signed, running down his checklist on a thorough tangerine investigation.

Osamu stared.

“We’ll find your soulmate before you lose your voice,” Yuma looked right at Osamu, “so drink more of it,”

Osamu fidgeted with the light cloth around his throat, bashful at being fussed over rather than doing the fussing.

“When is the rehearsal, anyhow?” Yuma asked, wiggling his legs under the covers.

Replica was downstairs, warming his mother’s aching joints.

“In two weeks,” Osamu signed.

The choir uniform hung by the door, white as a specter, visible even in the dead of night. The air smells like cut grass.

x

A week into his stay at Mikado, he’s apprehended and taken to the city’s security council.

The guard that snagged him in the middle of a sales pitch has bangs that lay low over his brow, and his imprint is an ash black against his throat.

“Yeah, his soulmate was his sister,” the other security guard signed as they led him to the main headquarters in the center of the city.

“She was a good few years older than him, used up all her words teaching him how to talk. Got the pink, kicked the bucket. He never spoke since.”

Yuma didn’t ask, but nodded anyway. He couldn’t sign with handcuffs on.

“He’s pretty much married to his job now,” The guard signed, his nametag says ‘Yosuke Y.”, his face betrays nothing but a genial smile. The subject of their conversation never once turning back. “Well, and to me,”

Yuma nodded as the guard proudly showed him a small ring on his left hand.

Guess he wouldn’t want to talk to Replica then, Yuma thought as he was escorted to an office.

A man with a thundercloud face and a lightning bolt scar down his face greeted him behind a chunky desk.

“Do you know why you are here?” he asked, signing slowly.

Yuma shook his head.

“Our authorities reported an undocumented immigration into our city,” the man continued, with a steady, sarcastic drawl of his fingers. “Have you gotten your papers checked with our ministry of tourism?”

Yuma shook his head again. The man, like the security guards, never introduced themselves, but the plaque on his table shines in the afternoon sun.

KIDO MASAMUNE

_How familiar_ , Yuma thought, just as Kido rapped sharply on the table,

Yuma moved to sign, but his cuffed hands jingled uselessly, just a window by the far end of the room knocked loudly.

“His name is Kuga Yuma,” Replica boomed, through the window of the office. Kido made no move to let him in, only staring slowly, remembering.

His eyes moved like a calibrator, from Replica at the window, to the photo frames at the other end of the room, finally staring at Yuma-

-and the patch of uneven skin on his neck.

“Do you-” He started signing, then faltered. He let his sentence drift into a dismissive wave.

“Do you have your papers?” He signed.

“Yes, he does,” Replica boomed again, thumping against the window pane.

Kido stared, before standing up to let the small chaperone in, glancing through his papers, and stamping them authoritatively.

He is out the Border Defense Agency by mid-afternoon.

He manages to only add fifty people to his database with the rest of the day, and wondered belatedly if he should have asked Kido as well.

x

After half a month of intense pain, blinding like he never knew, he woke up an orphan.

How could he have known how many words he had left? No one he knew ran out of words by age seven. The pink caught him in three years, and there was no way the starving scientist could afford the Echo for his son. Do scientists believe in superstitions? This one did. His son and he had the same imprint, so maybe, he thought, hypothesized that it was fate.

His father was already cremated when he woke. In his will, he left the empty lab and Replica. On his son, he left his imprint.

x

“Yugo’s son?” Shinoda signed, tugging at his starched collar.

“Got arrested by Kido, yes,” Rindo signed, “said he was accompanied by “the Kuga clan’s abomination”, which I suppose was Replica,”

Rindo paused to light up a cigarette.

“Replica barely had any voice recordings back when we first met,” Rindo signed with a cigarette in one hand. “Yugo’s great grandfather created the little fellow, his grandfather built him, his father gave him the first few voice lines, Yugo himself gave him most of his voice, and now, Yuma’s making use of him.”

Shinoda scowled with no small measure of disdain, making sure that Yuma had traveled a distance from the Tamakoma branch before he continued.

“Yugo was too curious for his own good,” he signed, tie still undone about his neck. “Of all his genius, he decided to play matchmaker? It’s a shame.”

“Be nice,” Rindo signed, patting down his suit, “Yugo wanted more than anything for others to be happy, even you,” Rindo grinned, smoke filtering out from between his teeth.

“I am happy,” Shinoda signed, shoulders squared, “I’m happy making my own fate, instead of letting this-” he pinches at the skin by his imprint, “tell me who I’m supposed to fall in love with.”

“If you can’t make your own fate, store-bought is fine,” Rindo shrugged, and snuffed out his cigarette.

“You and Yugo-” Shinoda signed, then huffed when Rindo simply headed for the door.

“Come on, we’ll be late for the concert,” Rindo signed, “and after that tragedy, we’ll take the entire harvest season to recover.”

x

“I’m sorry, the Chief director and Board director are out currently,” the bespectacled operator says, after she happily agreed to the test (“not for love, but for science, perhaps the love of science!”).

“They’re out for the Valentines’ show in the park. You should join them, the Duke holds a concert every year, it’s a huge deal,”

“Today?” Yuma signed, “not next week?”

The operator looked bemused. “No, it’s going to be the official opening for harvest next week, and everyone will be busy with the harvest. That’s why they’re holding it now.”

Yuma thought of a long, drawn out scream, going through the woods.

x

The amphitheater is shaded by willowy trees, of which genus Yuma is unclear, but they are useful. The sun was rising high now, where any relief from the heat was welcome. He considered his surroundings, the thick, rough branch he settled upon, how the ancient amphitheaters were found to resemble the inner ear, making it architecturally adept at voice projection. He observed the deathly quiet crowd rustling in, and the shake of the leaves, as a child named Midorikawa plopped down by him with a quiet little girl with pigtails, each almost the size of Replica.

Replica himself was unnaturally quiet on his lap and offered no distraction or comfort. Dread only rose as the conductor stalks on stage, brown slicked back hair shining in the afternoon.

“That’s Jin!’ Midorikawa signed excitedly, and Yuma nodded dumbly. The conductor bowed deeply, and as he turned, the pink curtains drew apart to reveal rows of singers, dressed in bone white robes, lined up like teeth, ready to be knocked down. The silence stretched on long enough for Yuma to spot Osamu by the corner, glasses catching the sunlight, burning.

Perhaps his soulmate would be listening.

The conductor snapped his stick against the stand of his musical score, signaling the breaking of Yuma’s promise, and the precipice of eternal silence for Osamu, but both looked straight ahead, in trepidation or calm acceptance, they didn’t know.

The wind rose as they sang. It was a love song, predictably, soft and flutey and hopelessly saturated with pathos. Some of the choir looked genuinely happy, to sing themselves dry proclaiming love. Osamu sang solemnly, committed to doing his job, bound to perfunctory pain even with his dying voice.

The pink curtains lick at his feet.

He couldn’t hear Osamu’s voice, not with the rest of the choir singing over him. Yuma wondered if Osamu’s soulmate would have his Osamu’s singing be his imprint. What luck, he thought, then wondered why he thought that.

Osamu’s eyes stay closed as he sang, and when they opened again, they were filled with terror. Yuma nearly jumped, when he saw him clutch his blank throat, and cry as he bowed. The crowd clapped and clapped and clapped, The duke and duchess stood and kiss in the front row. The wind blew strong, and Osamu ran into the pink curtains, offstage.

x

Yuma found him by the old tree stump.

This time, he doesn’t hesitate to step over the flowering bushes, walking past the needle like branches and walking to Osamu. His scarf is finally off, and his throat is well and truly blank. The robe had brown splotches, and from the trees, he looks like a rotting flower petal, curling into dirt.

He kneels by the crying boy and holds him close.

“I’m sorry,” Osamu mouths, hands shaking in Yuma’s.

Yuma wanted to say something, but figured it would be akin to mocking Osamu’s own voicelessness, so he stayed silent.

Now,

he shouldn’t have stayed silent.

But he did, holding Osamu close and thinking about himself. He still couldn’t understand why someone would cry this hard over a lost soulmate. Yuma himself had no soulmate, and he was taking the fact rather well. But then again, he’d had much longer to come to terms with it, and then again, he and Osamu were different people. Same, same, but different. He thinks of blood cells. You know, how O- were the universal donors. O-, Osamu, maybe it was fated, coded into Osamu that he would give and give to everyone and only receive from one other. And Yuma, who’d received love and encountered trust while compiling his TRION information, but now, he was unable, somehow, incompatible to reciprocate. Wrong antibodies, wrong body, wrong person

Then he got angry. Where was Osamu’s soulmate? What on earth could they be doing that was more important, more pressing than being here right now? Then Yuma turned the anger on himself. And what of him? That had given Osamu hope of finding his soulmate before he drained his voice? What good was he ever since he stepped into town? No, maybe Osamu never had hope to begin with, that’s why he lied of the concert, maybe all hope was in Yuma to begin with.

Yuma thinks of Kasumi, and thinks to help Osamu home, carry him if necessary. But the boy was still breathing staltingly like he’d forgotten how. And he breathed in through his nose, then harshly through his mouth. He did this over and over in Yuma’s arms, and only belatedly did Yuma realize he was trying to scream.

If you’d pardon the non-scientific usage of this term: Yuma’s heart broke.

He pulled Osamu to face him, and signed, over, and over: _Home, Home Home_.

_Let’s go home._

Osamu nodded, and Yuma didn’t let go of his hand until they walked into the house.

The weeds were growing again.

x

For two weeks, he barely returned to the Mikumo residence. Only to shower and check on Kasumi. After a while, she told him that one boy fussing over her at home was more than enough, and he returned less frequently.

Mikado city was small, and Yuma was almost done. The general manager seemed quite happy to give him his data, and so was the eccentric Branch manager. They seemed to know his father, but were quite reluctant to regale any tales of him. Yuma thanked them and went to the next house, and the next.

He was almost done.

The only person who’s soulmark he didn’t have in the city was right behind the heavy door.

Kido Masamune.

x

“I refuse,” he signs. Slowly and surely again.

Yuma was so close to adding another scar to his collection. The two guards seemed to notice this, stepping forward.

“Please,” Yuma signs, “I am looking for my friend’s soulmate, and it isn’t anyone else in town. It could be you.”

“It could be anyone,” Kido replied, frustratingly calm. “You are a scientist, are you not?” he asks, “Hasn’t anyone told you about jumping to conclusions like this?”

Yuma jumps up then, rage engulfing him. Replica beeps loudly when Yuma slams his palms on the table. At once, the guards are beside him, and his hands are behind his back.

Unable to sign, he screams.

“PLEASE!” he shouts, his voice echoing in the room. It startles everyone in the room, including Yuma himself.

Kido signs to the guards to release him, and he sits down again. Replica hovers near, a calming presence.

“It isn’t me,” Kido signs, and moves to unwind the cloth around his neck.

The words are gold, and very familiar, he’d heard that introduction for the first eleven years of his life.

“Kuga Yugo, pleased to make your acquaintance.”

But his father’s soulmark was –

“It wasn’t me,” Kido signs, “Not for your father, and not for your friend. Now,” he says, winding his scarf back on.

“Leave.”

x

“You got arrested…again?” Osamu signs.

“Won’t happen again,” Yuma smiles, bags under his eyes.

“- since I’m leaving Mikado tomorrow.”

Osamu stares as Yuma stuffs the month they spent together into his suitcase – the orange stained pants, the tiny keychains they bought together, all his research on the mysterious Mikado tangerines, a scarf his mother knitted, uneven but warm. The postcards in a folder, the glass slides in a protective case, the data of everyone in Osamu’s hometown-

Osamu had hoped, even for a little that-

“Won’t you stay for the harvest?” Osamu signs.

“The ships will be too packed, it’s best I leave before,” Yuma replies.

“Then everyone will be here,” Osamu tries, “You can collect more data, can’t you?”

“They’ll be busy with the harvest,” Yuma replies “I’d just be getting in the way.”

Yuma clicks the suitcases shut, and smiles tiredly.

“I’ll find your soulmate,” Yuma signs, “They’re not here, but I’ll find them, eventually,”

“You don’t have to,” Osamu signs, exasperated. “I don’t want to find them, not anymore, Yuma. In fact. I just want you to stay — and enjoy the harvest.”

“I’ve had enough of tangerines,” Yuma jokes lamely.

“Enough of Mikado city?” Osamu signs back, weakly.

He looked pained, and Yuma pondered for a good while, clasping his suitcases shut and lining them against the wall.

“I’ll come back,” Yuma signs, “and I’ll have your soulmate with me,”

“You don’t have to find them,” Osamu signs again, almost petulant. “You don’t, I said, don’t you get it?”

Yuma sits by him on the bed and holds Osamu’s clenched fist in his hand, feeling the angry hop of Osamu’s pulse. He slowly uncurls it, thumbing out a rough ‘O’ in Osamu’s palm.

_My O-,_ Yuma thinks, _I’ll find you your compatible. You’ll be happy yet, I’ll make sure of it_.

Osamu seemed dour now, more exhausted, and so was Yuma, from spending the week out collecting data.

“This is so sudden,” Osamu signs, in the dim light, in the tangerine soap scented room he shared with Yuma.

“A merchant said he’d give me a lift in his boat, since I found his daughter’s soulmate,” Yuma signed, slipping off Osamu’s bed onto his futon. “First thing tomorrow morning,”

Yuma sleeps almost instantly, and dreams of Osamu signing over him – a month has passed so quickly —

Take care of my mother-stay here-nearly the harvest season- stay here with me—

x

The boat sprung a leak, an anti-climatic end to his last day in Mikado.

“Don’t you worry, we can patch it up by early afternoon,” the burly fisherman signed, with one hand and a hook. He looked over at the pier, where his daughter was tying up her lover’s long hair. The two girls laughed as a large wave laps onto shore.

“Look at them, makes me glad I settled down here,” The merchant signed, “Never thought my soulmate was any other lady but the sea, but now I’m a soft old land lubber,”

Yuma smiled, sleep deprived.

“You too, little man,” he signed, prodding at Replica roughly, leaving the small robot huffy, ”You got the luck to be here for harvest; nonsense that ya’d leave right before it got fun”

The sun was punishing, only promising more unrelenting heat as it crawled up the sky. Yuma was just debating getting one last drink of tangerine when a small hand slapped down on his shoulder.

Chika, out of breath, tear streaks down her cheeks.

“Osamu-“ she signs, mouthing through tears, “The pink!” 

Yuma despairs.

x

On the table were his glasses, old jewelry that were unlikely to fetch much, and the deed to the house.

Yuma waited and held Kasumi’s hands in his own sweaty ones, waiting for the Duke to speak.

“I’m sorry for calling you down for nothing,” The Duke sniffed, signing at his appraiser, a man dressed too warmly for the summer weather.

The Duke sniffed again, dabbing at his runny nose with a silk handkerchief, strutting out.

Polite to the very end, the appraiser unpacks his magnifying glass, and inspects each old, scratched pearl on the necklace, and reading each line on the deed. He smiled tightly at Kasumi, who’d barely looked up from her cup of cooling tea.

“It’s a start,” he signed, with the practiced calm of a man used to signing bad news, “don’t lose hope quite yet,”

He picked up the pearls again, turning it this way and that, before putting it down in well-smothered resignation.

“I can give you a quote of how much more you may need,” he signed, slipping his maginifying glass back into its pouch “and if it’s any consolation —“

Kasumi stared at the man.

“-I’m glad you’re doing better, Mdm Mikumo.”

Chika held her steady as she wept into her hands.

x

The Amatori family gave what they can, which isn’t much, during the off-season for their hot springs. On the bright side, Chika had more time to stay by Osamu as Yuma went out to the orchards.

In the orchards, Yuma picked what he could with his height, and Replica’s highly inefficient method of butting into the tangerine and dropping them to the floor. The earnings were small, but steady - until the authorities informed him that neighbours, what they called Non-Mikado citizens, weren’t allowed in the orchards.

Then for the next week he picked at discarded juice shells, washing them clean by the sea and helping Kasumi slice spirals out of them, making rose-like potpopurris, and selling them by the market place.

Kasumi’s handiwork sells for a paltry amount, Yuma’s misshapen creations are barely touched.

With much heartbreak, life went on.

The night the pink reached Osamu’s fingertips, he signed shakily to Yuma.

“When I go,” he signed, eyes squinting without his glasses, “Will you take care of my mother?”

Yuma sat by his bed, and signed “yes,”

Osamu only closed his eyes when Replica settled down by him and beeped, “Not a lie”.

That blindingly hot night, Yuma wandered like a drunk into the forest, tripping past the dark bushes and scratching himself with the branches, settling by the old tree stump, sitting and catching his urge to scream. So this is how Osamu felt, twice a full moon ago when they first met.

Someone kicked him.

“I thought we told you neighbours weren’t allowed in our orchards”

“Why are you patrolling at night?” Yuma signed to the familiar, stern policeman. His reply was simply loosening his handcuffs from his belt.

He ambled home, still raging inside, but tired out from the walk, only to snap to attention when he sees Chika pulling an old doctor into the house.

The doctor signed like his father - in short sentences, and quickly.

“I’m sorry,” he signed, like one would rip off a bandaid, “You should spend the rest of the night with him, In my experience, that always helps,”

Yuma went up, and at first, he barely notices the bright pink under the thin cotton blanket Osamu had.

Replica buzzed from where he sat, and Osamu looked right at Yuma, his irises completely pink. He moved to sign, but Yuma snatched Replica up, and yanked his suitcases from the side of the wall, and ran into the night.

“Neighbour,” the policeman signed from behind him, as he slammed his fists into the Tamakoma branch’s main gate. But it was clear he was not listening.

The handcuffs rattled dangerously just as a very confused Rindo steps out from the door. He purveys the scene before him : the sweaty son of his dead friend, and a very angry policeman.

“I suppose you’d better come in,” He signed.

x

Rindo regrets letting the boy in.

“Selling the TRION?” Rindo signed, cigarette dropping as he gapes. Yuma doesn’t move, from across the table, green tea untouched.

“Don’t be too hasty about this,” Rindo signed, picking up his cigarette before it ignites on the table.

Yuma doesn’t move. The green tea taunts him - no more green for you, it says, only pink now, pink —

“It’ll take months for the paperwork to be approved, patents aren’t sold overnight –“

Replica sits by the table, with the main T.R.I.O.N suitcase. When he turns to look at Yuma, he finally breaks the silence.

“Please, Mr Rindo,” he beeps, reluctantly,

“Please,” Yuma echoes, out loud.

Rindo snubs out his cigarette and furrows his brows.

“You’re just like your father,” Rindo signed.

x

They clear the way for him as they see him run in with the Echo pill.

He knocks his toes on the front step, the kitchen table, the stair and the doorjamb before he finally, finally, kneels by Osamu and slips the small pill down his throat.

Yuma breathes heavily into the mattress where he knelt, before he realized, after a beat,

nothing was happening.

Osamu was still. He shook his head lowly, peeling back the covers to place a finger by his jugular.

No pulse.

Yuma took a step back, before falling forward and shaking Osamu.

“Wake up!” He screamed, “Wake up, please!”

x

The young boy in front of him gaped, one Shinoda Something-or-other, Yuma had lost count after the third child the couple had.

He snapped his journal shut, and when he noticed the boy still staring, signed “The End”.

The boy frowned.

“What happened to Osamu then?” he signed.

“Don’t take the gauze off yet,” Yuma scolded, pressing the cotton back on the boy’s injection wound,

“What happened?” The boy insisted stubbornly, taking the gauze away to sign again.

Yuma reached for the medical tape and secured the gauze to his forearm. _Be a doctor_ , they said, _not that different from being a scientist,_ they said.

The doorbell chimed then, letting in three little hellions as Ms Sawamu- no, Ms Shinoda, walked in with her husband, who was holding a baby who wasn’t quite old enough for her Pink vaccine. Yuma could only hope that she was more well behaved than his latest patient.

“Thank you for waiting,” Ms Sawamura signed, apologetic.

“No problem,” Yuma signed, “you can pay when I drop by Tamakoma, he’s been too busy to bring Yotaro to the clinic.”

“That’s a great help, the T.R.I.O.N is taking up most of his time, isn’t it? You must be proud, Kuga,”

“It’s Mikumo now,” Yuma signed, “and yes, though Replica has been very upset at not being able to go out while we transfer his data to the main framework”

There was a sharp tug on his trousers that bordered on de-pantsing him then, “What happened to Osamu?” The boy signed.

“Don’t take off the gauze until evening,” Yuma signed, grabbing a lolly by the receptionist’s desk and shoving it to the boy.

“What happened to Osamu?” the boy signed, as his parents waved goodbye to the bespectacled pharmacist behind the counter, “Mama, do you know? Do you know—“

**Author's Note:**

> midnight with a 40 degree fever i refused to take my medication with water and stood in the kitchen, juicing orange after orange, vaguely knowing that time was passing when my hands got stickier and sticker. 
> 
> after a certain temperature every joint hurts and moving feels like dreaming. The juice was lukewarm and hard-earned. 
> 
> mid-afternoon before it rained the sky got so dark even the police cars looked grey. you can't really explain sour without sounding like you're explaining love sometimes. you can't ask science why the rain waited for me to reach home, or why my fever night never seemed to end until i was well and done with my juice. 
> 
> reading old writing reminds me - someone pouring the pain and sick and rain and still into my open hands, they were too small (though i thought i was all grown), all i caught was the pink and orange and the overwhelming feeling that i was loved, and it'd be ok.


End file.
